


Scourge

by deathwailart



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cannibalism, Gen, Goddesses, Gore, Horror, Implied Torture, Monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:39:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"For I am Judgement and Death," she proclaims.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scourge

"For I am Judgement and Death," she proclaims in a voice that does not so much ring as toll, sonorous church bells summoning the sinners to confess, make recompense on their knees before their souls are judged and weighed. The voice of a goddess above all others, wrapped in the night itself, rippling when she moves, clinging and flowing. Her eyes black holes, the abyss that stares back, measuring before devouring. Feared and loved is what she is, as with every other capricious, jealous deity in need of prayer and souls. She can hold sway over all, rapt with devotion, swallowing sermons as if her words are manna from the heavens, the only sustenance ever to be needed.  
  
Days of fasting, swaying on their feet in all weathers, within the great hall devoted to her worship, bare walls and floors of polished wood with a podium where her seat is, black and cold as coal but smooth, shining in the light of many torches like marble. Many collapse only to be dragged upright, "the weak, the ones who commit grave trespass," she whispers, not even she daring to disturb the awed hush that falls over her congregation. Only children, the infirm or most ancient of the old escape with skin intact or indeed even their lives when she leads the fallen down through the trap door to the deeper levels all are forbidden to speak of. Her punishment of choice is to whip and flay, a slow torture, delicately plucking morsels of truths, of crimes, wickedness in thought or deed until she claims them utterly or announces that the scales are in a balance once again, that they have been bathed in pure blood and sweat. They kiss her feet in gratitude, clean her bloodied hands as they tremble, never weeping, never flinching. Such things will come late when they return to stand amidst the others, until all the days and nights have passed.  
  
"They have ascended," the people cry if those made pure die during or after the long vigils, "ever to serve at her side." So many offer themselves freely to her eternal service, submitting themselves to be flayed alive, crying, praising her. It is done before any who wish to bear witness, mothers and fathers with white knuckled grips on their children who, with horror and love in their voices, say that maybe they - and if it is themselves, their children or both they refer to is unknown - will be lucky enough to be in such a position. To serve their goddess for all eternity is an honour few are accorded for there is only one other alternative, the unthinkable wastes, the horrific places she speaks of in their vigils and that keep people from straying from their teachings. That other place is the one bereft of their goddess. Twisted and ruined, a nightmare where all save the good and worthy go, the place she says she plucks their souls from, all of them born awful and sinful. Heretics said she comes from there, that she is a false prophet who wants only to drag them to ruin and suffering until the world itself comes to an end. Said for they are no more, all gone, all picked apart to make them repent.  
  
"I am not cruel," she had intoned imperiously, "I want only to cleanse you , to make you whole again. Do you not want that? Sweet salvation shall be yours. Peace and warmth will await you on the other side. An end to fear my children! White towers crowned in gold and silver, green lands, blue waters where sickness, pain, hunger and death fear to tread!" And every man, woman and child had seen it. Glittering, full of promise, sweet enough they could already taste it. What would they _not_ give to partake of such a mighty gift, offered so freely? They had jeered at the heretic priests, watched them bleed and burn before prostrating themselves at her feet.  
  
Now they scarcely remember the old days before she came save for furtive whispers, wondering about the souls of all those who came before, if they are lost to sin forever. _How could we have been blind for so long_? A common refrain. Bending before altars day and night, soft heathen amens falling from their lips as they offer blood and salt, meat and bone, gold, silver, precious things.  
  
"For I am Judgement and Death," she proclaims to the dying who quiver in her grasp, "but I am beginning and end too. I who planted the seed of death within you when I pulled your soul from the pit. I judged you long ago as I as judged by those fat old maggot priests. I will judge you time and time again as I send you to your afterlife, cast you upon biting rock and boiling river," she smiles as she spits out those words, cradling the dead or dying as if their mother, held close to her breast. "You say you love me but you lie every day, offering empty gestures - hate and fear stir your devotions. Such lies when I offer you all this," her arms stretch wide and hide, the stance of the glorious victor, a beast's lean and hungry smile and those black eyes the well of all souls. "Such lies you spit. Ungrateful, ignorant."  
  
Dead men tell no tales, so they say and so it is, her truth haunting them to their next life as a distorted parody of the old priests appear, flayed and burned men sewn into rotting vestments, their eyes empty pits as black as hers, tongues torn out to stop their words. The dead devoured by them as they moan and retch in pain and disgust, far below where she sits atop a true throne, unable to see her hateful smirk as she watched but they feel it, writhing beneath old, ruined skin. Darkness envelops her as she lounges on a throne, one made of bones, gnarled bark and blades, the trappings of her enemies and former tormentors when she was nothing but a lost soul in the pit herself. Oh but she learned. She learned to fight them all, to twist words the way she had been able to when her body had been her own and made of flesh and blood, sweet and light but they had feared her, these priests who deemed her mad, wished to quiet her through medicines and prayer, through healer's hands but she had revolted. Death had been her freedom when she had leapt escaped their clutches, their too-soft hands upon her, feigning kindness when she had known all too well the disgust in their eyes at this aberration who could do things no mere mortal girl should have been able to do. Judging her for what she could not control, a gift she had been given. And now they pay. All of them. All who mocked and jeered, who blamed her for all their problems that had been nothing to do with her in the first place, all of them she met as she clawed her way out of the dark place all went to when they died, something reaching out, whispering, comfort she had never known in life.  
  
Again and again they will feel what she felt as she watches, as she plucks them up to make them live it again and again until they are as broken as her, as mangled and ruined. They will find other places then, her children, her army by her side, ready to swallow the world.


End file.
